Want to Help Save a Yarn Shop?

May Linn Bang is organizing this fundraiser.

Donation protected

Not long after opening my doors to Knit With Attitude, I met a sales rep for the first time. A suited man in his 50s, grey haired, probably never knitted in his life. He was the first of many to offer me unsolicited advice on how to run a yarn shop. “You can’t have empty shelves,” he told me. “Even a single empty shelf tells customers you are struggling, and they will flee.” It didn’t take me long to learn that unsolicited advice from suited men should be taken with a lorry load of salt, but there was something about this one comment which has stayed and haunted me. Well now it’s time for me to face my empty shelf demon. This time I am holding my head high and saying aloud that I am struggling. I am saying this now because I need to ask for your help. And I am asking for this in the only way I know – with full and open honesty.

Knit With Attitude will be 15 in 2025, making it one of the longest standing yarn shops in London. When I set up the business in 2010 I wanted to prove that it was possible to run a sustainable business based on ethical values and environmentally friendly principles. These ideas were not yet the brand darlings of big business they would become, but I was determined to use the platform of my business to hold tight to these ethics to pioneer and promote independent designers and producers - the people and businesses that had not made it yet but that I believed in. It’s a source of great pride for me that so many of them are now beloved and well known within our industry. I believe we influenced and set a new standard and direction for our industry. KWA paved the way for those who came after me, helping to nurture and sustain the flourishing independent yarn shop scene we have today. It’s wonderful to think that I was able to play a part in making that happen. But beyond the buying and selling of yarn I also wanted to create a safe space and a community open for everyone through creativity. Looking back now, I feel so proud that I managed to do exactly that.

Through my years, from a stall in Spitalfields Market, to the tiny shop around the corner to our current home on the High Street, we’ve survived a double dip recession, austerity, Brexit, the pandemic. Still we grew steadily and reached milestone after milestone, connecting with and building our beautiful inclusive community, which grew far and wide across borders and oceans.

HOW DID WE GET HERE:

A building, quite literally, fell on my head.

We’d been through the pandemic, and my housemate-shop decided to take herself and her business out of London. I faced a choice. I could close too, or make the business work with the extra space and consequential costs. Of course I chose to stay! It was an opportunity to double our community space, to double our wonderful selection of yarn, and to double those events and festivities that previously had been limited by lack of space. I did it with my eyes open. I understood that double the investments, double the expense, double the responsibilities would also double the risk.

For the first time, I took out a loan to invest in Knit With Attitude, but I was confident, and in October 2022 we opened the doors to the new and expanded Knit With Attitude - showing her off in all her abundant glory. And within months I knew I’d made the right choice. The new bigger space was a huge success and we were making it work.

Cut to January 2023, barely 3 months into new shop life. I’d come in early to do some admin. I stepped outside to open up and I heard a weird rumbling noise. I turned, looked across the street and as I looked up I saw the entire top of the building opposite slide out and come crashing towards me. For a split second I thought that was it, but I managed to jump in through my door and slam it shut between me and the collapsing building. I stared out to see nothing but dust and debris. Ten minutes later the fire brigade was evacuating me and everyone else on the block because of the risk of the whole building collapsing.

We were evacuated for a month, with no access to the shop. It put an immediate stop to my income. Our street was completely closed with all traffic and public transport redirected from the area, while a monstrous construction site was erected to secure the area around the building. Eventually a narrow pathway was opened on my side of the street, and we gained access to the shop so we could reinstate online sales, but the construction work and lack of accessibility meant we fell behind with our investments and it wasn’t long before the shop was running at a loss.

The derelict building cast a long shadow: Whilst Big Capital was fighting amongst themselves about who was responsible for the renovation, the scaffolding around the empty flats and broken windows of the neglected building turned into a degrading and dangerous chaos. Not surprisingly, the mood on the street changed. Our previously friendly corner, became dark, loud and aggressive. People kept away and the shop became quieter. Still, I knew it must eventually end. I just needed to hold on, for better times.

A year later, last summer, I reached a bottleneck, our sales numbers were not enough to cover our running costs and our now accumulated debt, at the same time as maintaining our stock levels securing my stream of income. I despaired realising that the community we’ve built, the life line we provide on a daily basis to those who need it, the space we created both online and in the shop, all those aspects that makes a yarn shop so much more than just a business, what I’ve created, lived and worked for was about to disappear. More so, as a sole trader I am personally responsible for everything we owe and I was faced with the reality of going personally bankrupt with the worse case scenario being losing my home. In the last minute I was able to secure an extension on our loans enabling us to continue - on borrowed time. I had to put most of my staff on leave and cut all expenses to the bone. The plan being to buy and operate with limited stock levels, while trying to manage our outstandings and running costs.

14 months after the collapse the re-construction work finally started last September, with the renovation completed two weeks ago. After more than 2 years, my corner on the high street is yet again open and sunny, clean and friendly, but I have run out of time.

With the losses occurred, it has become inevitably clear that I am not able to generate enough sales to manage the expenses keeping my stock levels consistent, meaning my stock is depleted, I have empty shelves - and with empty shelves I’ve become less attractive as a yarn shop. It is a downward spiral I’ve not been able to break on my own, I need help to save my business, my community, my legacy and ultimately also my home.

WHAT WE ARE HOPING TO ACHIEVE:

In coming to you all asking for help, I am coming to you open and vulnerable, I am exhausted and can not fight this fight on my own anymore. I’m showing you my empty shelves. Hoping you still see the relevance of what I have contributed with the last 15 years, and the importance of shops like mine exciting. I strongly believe that in a world characterised by the hyper capitalism, hyper consumerism and social and political division we are experiencing now, the need for safe unifying spaces representing an alternative is more important than ever. Knit With Attitude has always been and will always be an opinionated voice in this regards, and I know this is appreciated as I connect with you all on a daily basis through my writings in our newsletters, our social media presence and the conversations had in our shop. Even though our sales have plummeted, our community is as alive and vibrant as ever. As I am asking for donations it is with the knowledge that many drops of water can create an ocean, a power wave to be reckoned with, if each of you, our wonderful following, contributes with as little as £5 each there is a way out of this desperate situation, there is even potential for bringing Knit With Attitude back to its former glory!

My intention for this fundraising is tiered, where the way forward is determined by the amounts we are able to raise, and I plan to change the goal posts accordingly if and when we reach them.

Goal post £25 000

I am devastated having my situation affecting and having consequences for other small businesses who rely on my ability to clear my outstandings, needless to say, my own future is also hanging in a thin thread caused by our difficulties. Reaching our first level of support I’d like to clear my immediate outstandings, to be able to let go of my lease and close the business in an orderly manner, making sure my staff is well taken care of, to keep my integrity and reputation.

Goal post £45 000

Reaching £45 000 would enable us to clear the immediate outstanding, invest in a minimum of new stock and secure smaller studio premises to continue as an online business. This would allow us to maintain operations enabling us to pay off our longstanding loans and for me to avoid bankruptcy. It would give us time and space to re-group, and hopefully further to grow, increasing our social media presence nurturing our wider virtual space.

Goal post £65 000

My ultimate dream scenario, I don’t even know if I dare to hope for this re-set of everything. To pay all outstandings and clear our loans, bringing our books into balance, enabling us to keep our high street shop and re-stock our shelves! To invite my beautiful staff back securing their positions, to engage in the festivals, the community work, the activism, to continue the teaching of skills and our educational/information work, to continue our virtual and in store meet-ups and open for all events. To run the shop sustainably so we can put the plans so brutally abrupt two years ago back into action, bringing the shop back to its full potential, serving our local and wider community in the best way we possibly can.

I can not promise you anything in return for your help, other than my commitment to what I have listed above, to continue being and developing what Knit With Attitude is, preaching the gospel of which we are founded upon.

However, what I can promise is the complete transparency in the process of saving my business. I promise to give regular updates on where we are, where we are going and to keep you involved in our journey ahead. In acknowledgment and recognition of the help I’m asking for, I’d like to create a Wall of Gratitude on our website, displaying and letting it be known the names of whom we have to thank for the continuation of Knit With Attitude.